Part II Flint-ing with Disaster, BWS on the Leaky Red Hill Fuel Tanks

None of this makes logical sense. You don’t build the world’s largest fuel storage facility 100 ft above a sole source aquifer. Except in wartime, with no significant populated areas nearby. That was the case when these were built in the 1940’s.

Now it seems we are in a new war, over natural resources and public safety vs the Navy’s inertia. It’s not like there aren’t alternatives. The Administrative Order on Consent (last 15 min) is supposed to look at alternatives. It’s really hard to fathom the cost of building new state of the art above ground storage tanks will be more expensive than building more monitoring wells, repairing and maintaining the tanks, implementing “new” (Watada mentions the 16 year old safety upgrades specifically designed for the tanks have yet to be implemented.) Certainly MORE jobs would be created since in addition to building new facility/facilities we still have to deal with the clean up of toxic waste and pollution at the old one.

I found Tina Quizon’s hard hitting 15 minute interview with then (Sept 2015) Department of Health Chair Gary Gill. While Gill tries to put a positive spin on it all, he fully corroborates the concerns of Watada and Lau. BWS says they have formally requested that DOH share any information received from the Navy, and as we heard, that just is not happening. Gill says several additional things equally as hair-raising as BWS. For time reasons, we didn’t even get into the scariness of the tunnel, for instance, but Gill puts it right out there:

Tracy Burgo, the BWS Communications Officer has promised to keep me in the loop on the June meeting. A strong showing of public support for BWS’s efforts to protect our drinking water would give Dept. of Health, EPA, and the Navy a clear message that the current pace and scope of efforts is simply unacceptable. We go!